With the FCC approving the sale of “Q104.5” KMCQ Covington/Seattle, WA to Educational Media Foundation, the station signed-off its Classic Hits format just before midnight on Sunday evening before EMF relaunched the station as Christian AC “K-Love” KLSW later this afternoon.
The sale had held up following a petition to deny by William Resler over the pending change of format, license modification to non-commercial status, and main studio waiver. As the FCC does not get involved in format changes the petition was denied.
Update 2/27: EMF will be paying $7 million of KMCQ. As it does whenever it acquires a commercial stations, it will apply to convert it to non-commercial status with a main studio waiver.
Original Report 2/26: Educational Media Foundation has announced it has purchased Classic Hits “Q104.5” KMCQ Covington/Seattle, WA for an as yet undisclosed price.
Currently owned by Queen Cities Broadcasting, KMCQ moved to Covington from The Dalles, OR in 2008 and increased coverage into the Seattle market in 2010. Kalil and Co. served as the broker for the deal.
EMF has been *very* successful in recent years in finding good purchase opportunities that fit its needs and making the deal without word leaking out ahead of time. Can’t say I’m surprised by this one.
Really enjoyed listening to them whenever I was in Seattle….decent mix of oldies/classic hits. Not to mention they had quite a few different promotional items and seemed a nice bunch of folks.
Time for more XM when in Seattle
More K-Love!
Seattle already has a Christian AC in KGMS “Spirit 105.3”. Look for EMF to put its Christian Rock format Air 1 on 104.5.
$7M to run Air1? My bet would be K-Love. Cost close to nothing to run since it will become a satellite station…